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 had left no more trail behind him when he fled from Nearing's house than if he had walked on water.

After a few hours' sleep Barrett was up again at dawn, eager to resume the hunt. Fred Grubb joined him before he had his boots on; together they had breakfast, Alvino setting it out on the end of the oilcloth-covered table, Barrett's plate laid, either by chance or design, in the boss' place where Dale Findlay commonly sat.

Dan came in, his face fresh from the washpan, the forelock of his fair hair over his eye. Habit of rising before the stars began to fade out of the sky was too strong on him to let him rest in his bunk ten minutes past the usual time. He stood at the glass, which was not big enough to show all of his face at once, arranging his hair with the steel comb that Alvino had anchored beside it on a string.

"Boss man, you're in the right place," he said, combing with one hand, holding down his hair with the other, as particularly as if he prepared to ride to another dance.

"I just happened to light here," Barrett said.

"Manuel told me he saw it in the cards that you'd be the big boss of the Diamond Tail," said Fred, nodding very solemnly.

Barrett said nothing more. The fact was, it had been running through his head all night, awake and asleep, that somebody must step temporarily into Nearing's place. The property of the company, his own property, which he had faced no small peril to salvage, must be guarded. New men must be employed to fill